Joke On The Puppy: A Song History
"Joke on the Puppy" is one of several names for an old-time breakdown in A major that is more often called "Rye Straw"; the Traditional Tune Archive also lists it as "The Unfortunate Pup" and connects it with western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, north Georgia and Mississippi.[1] Library of Congress notes on a 1967 field recording of the tune by Virginia fiddler Henry Reed list a long string of further titles, among them "A Whoop from Arkansas" and "Unfortunate Puppy," and explain that "Rye Straw" is a cleaned-up shortening of "Dog in the Rye Straw," a nod to crude rhymes about a dog.[2] Versions differ in structure, running to as few as two parts or as many as four.[1]
Tawaraya Sōtatsu, Puppy with Dandelions, ink on paper, 1600–1640. A puppy, shown for the tune's title; it has no connection to the tune.
Uncle Am Stuart cut it in New York in June 1924 as "Rye straw or the unfortunate dog," a fiddle solo with banjo issued on Vocalion 5038.[3] Clayton McMichen recorded it as "Rye straw" in Atlanta on October 29, 1929, with Riley Puckett on guitar and vocal, for Columbia 15521-D.[4] The puppy title turns up in the same Library of Congress notes, which cite an archive recording (AFS 3047b3) by Stephen B. Tucker of Meridian, Mississippi, catalogued as "The Joke on the Puppet," most likely a slip for "Puppy."[2] Tucker's playing of the tune appears on Great Big Yam Potatoes, a 1985 album of Mississippi fiddle music from the state's Department of Archives and History.[1]
Round Peak fiddler Tommy Jarrell learned the tune around 1915 from his father, Ben Jarrell, and from banjo player Charlie Lowe, both of whom had it from Pet McKinney, and it gave its name to Jarrell's 1976 album on the Galax-based Mountain label.[1][5] That same year Barry Poss observed that the tune was a familiar one in the Galax, Virginia, style of playing.[1] Dana Gruber includes it in The Pickin' Porch, a Fingers Of Steel collection that pairs standard notation with dulcimer tablature and guitar chords for jamming, setting it in GDG tuning with a capo at the third fret.[6]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Joke on the Puppy (The)".
- Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "Rye Straw" (Henry Reed, 1967).
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Vocalion matrix 13329. Rye straw or the unfortunate dog / Uncle "Am" Stuart".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W149290. Rye straw / Riley Puckett ; Clayton McMichen".
- NCpedia: "Jarrell, Thomas Jefferson".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, The Pickin' Porch".
- Image: Tawaraya Sōtatsu, Puppy with Dandelions, ink on paper, 1600–1640. The Cleveland Museum of Art.